The invention relates to a novel treatment for wart and related disorders such as papillomas derived from extracts of pepper and ginger and chemically related species.
Warts, or verrucae infect man and animal alike. More than 80 related strains of papillomavirus (HPV) have been identified as the cause. It is estimated than 40 million Americans have some form of HPV infection.
Most warts are harmless, but may also harbor bacterial infections. Still other may cause cancer of the cervix, vagina, vulva, anus, penis, mouth, throat, or esophagus.
Warts affect all age groups, but are most common in children. Almost everyone has had common warts. These infect the fingers, around nails, knees, face, scalp, and may spread to other areas including the mouth.
Plantar warts develop on the sole of the foot, causing pain, particularly while walking and thickening of the surrounding skin. Plantar warts are difficult to cure.
Filiform warts form long, narrow, small growths on eyelids, face, neck, or lips.
Flat warts (more common in children and young adults) form smooth yellow-brown spots usually on the face.
Seborrheic warts, though not caused by a virus are found most commonly on the face of the aged.
Genital warts are transmitted sexually, infecting the vulva, vaginal wall, cervix, and areas around the vagina In men, the penis and surrounding areas may be infected. Also a site of infection is the area around the anus and in the rectum more common in homosexual men, and in women who engage in anal sex. Some types of genital warts emit foul smelling secretions. The mouth and throat are also an area of infection and transmission as a result of oral sex with infected genitalia. Genital warts return frequently and require repeated treatment. They are highly contagious, with an estimated 1 million new cases occurring each year in the U.S. Sites of infection including vagina, cervix, uterus, penis, rectum, mouth, throat ect, are at increased risk for developing cancer. Immunocompromised patients with AIDS, cancer, diabetes, and recipients of organ transplant medication are most susceptible to HPV, as well as other infections.
Warts are unsightly, causing revulsion, embarrassment in addition to itch, foul odor, pain discomfort, and increased cancer risk. Prior art treatments are expensive, prolonged, and often ineffective. Even wealthy sufferers, with the best health care available are hardly much better off than the poorest of the world with regard to wart afflictions.
The prior art acid peel method requires several weeks or months of repeated daily applications hoping to soften the wart enough to allow it to be peeled off This method often burns the surrounding healthy skin and frequently fails.
Physician administered nitrogen freezing, electrodesiccation, curettage, laser, and stronger acid treatments are effective to destroy the wart, but often leave a scar in place of the wart. Treatment is expensive, requiring administration by a physician, and often requires follow-up. In spite of these measures, the wart returns about one-third of the time, or new ones crop up around the edges of the old one. These poor results are obtained at a cost of several hundred dollars.
The failure of prior art medications to produce an effective, reasonably priced wart treatment has several negative consequences. Patients cannot get adequate relief The high cost of treatment adds further to the already exorbitant cost of healthcare borne by employers, government, and ultimately the patient through added medical bills, increased insurance premiums and higher taxes. Repeated physician visits reduce worker productivity, and leisure time.
Unresolved wart cases with cancer causing HPV may result in severe illness, or loss of life for many, in addition to the much greater medical costs associated with cancer treatment. These misfortunes are multiplied as cancer causing HPV strains are spread to others. At particular disadvantage are low-income individuals without healthcare insurance who cannot afford cancer treatment, and are most likely to perish as a result.
Prior art wart treatments lack the effectiveness necessary to treat the problem sufficient to attract consumer appeal and secure product profitability, and success for drug companies. They lack economic feasibility for development of low cost treatments for the poor of industrialized countries, developing countries, and similar products for livestock, companion animal, and other veterinary uses to the detriment of patient and supplier alike.
Today, more than every before, the importance of having medications that are not only safe, and effective, but cost effective as well, is becoming critical to the preservation of our way of life. Escalating health care costs in the United States are causing real hardship on the middle and lower income Americans as 1 in 6 cannot afford health care insurance. A greater share of the household budget otherwise spent on housing, college education, retirement, entertainment, and consumer goods must instead go to cover health care costs. The standard of living is lowered as capital is taken from industries that provide employment, and create tax revenues. The national debt continues to soar as increasing numbers of citizens are excluded from adequate medical care. Is health care at the risk of economic rum a real benefit to society?
Several objects and advantages of my invention include an improved treatment for wart infections of unparalleled effectiveness. A treatment that saves the misery of millions of sufferers, is low in toxicity, low in cost, safe, leaves no scarring, is affordable to the poor, and hence of broader commercial feasibility. A treatment that quickly resolves wart varieties with cancer causing potential prior to the cancerous stage to avert serious illness, loss of life, and spread of the infection to other parts of the body, and to other persons, and eliminates the need for costly cancer treatment. A treatment that saves billions of dollars annually in patient productivity, healthcare costs, and capable of becoming a model for demonstrated savings in commercial healthcare, and government sponsored programs such as Medicare, and Medicaid. An economically feasible veterinary wart treatment for livestock, pets, companion, and other animals of broadened commercial appeal. An important reseach tool applicable toward other related tumors, neoplasms, growths, papillomas, cancers, and viral disorders.
I have discovered that pepper, and chemically related compounds, and species of plants contain active agents of unparalleled effectiveness in the treatment of wart infections. These agents administered in a wide range of concentrations within commonly used drug vehicles and carriers such as a lotion, drops, tincture, and other vehicles with a level of effectiveness truly generations ahead of currently available prior art wart treatments.
Various types of warts including common warts, plantar warts, filiform warts, flat warts, genital warts, seborrheic warts and others may be completely healed in as few as a single topical treatment with this medication. This treatment requires no follow up, no attending physician, and leaves no scarring. Lower dose treatments produce cure in as few as half a dozen applications of my medicine rather than many scores of applications over a period of many weeks usually required by prior art wart medications that often do not cure.
Currently available prior art over the counter topical wart treatments containing salicylic acid usually require twelve weeks of daily multiple treatments. The time, and inconvenience involved in making repeated applications with meager results add further to the misery and discomfort of the disease. The weak therapeutic action of prior art over-the-counter treatments is often insufficient to produce adequate results. Often, the disorder must be treated surgically by a physician with scarring and failure to cure a common outcome.
Physician administered wart treatments are the most expensive, costing several hundred dollars with usually disappointing results. Nitrogen freezing, electrodesiccation, curretage, laser, and stronger acid treatments do little more. than mutilate the site of the wart, leaving a scar in place of the wart, and often damage surrounding healthy skin. In spite of these measures, the wart returns in about a third of the cases, or new warts emerge around the site of the old ones. In addition to being ineffective, these treatments are burdensome to healthcare costs and services, and result in loss of patient productivity and free time.
With the current invention, physician administered treatments for warts with the excessive cost, inconvenience, and poor result are in most cases a thing of the past.
Pepper extracts appear to possess multiple therapeutic actions in addition to direct antiviral/antimicrobial action. Case observations suggest general healing (vulnerary), keratolytic, immunostimulation and modulation, adjuvant, drug delivery, and prophylactic properties beyond direct antimicrobial. Though not tested to date for antiviral activity in vitro, antiviral, and other antimicrobial properties are believed to exist. In vitro antifungal screens prove proportionally increased potency against terminal drug resistant fungi strains in addition to unparralled effectiveness in treatment of actual disease in afflicted patients. Reference is made to U.S. Pat. No. 6,063,381 with regard to antifungal uses, and related therapeutic properties and actions that are believed to be applicable in treating papillomas, and these HPV related disorders. Antifungal medications in general, whether prior art or future art may also possess properties useful in treating wart-like disorders as disclosed here. More specifically: nystatin, amphotericin B, griseofulvin, tolnaftate, and all the xe2x80x9cazolexe2x80x9d derivative antifungals including, but not limited to clotimazole, miconazole, econazole, ketoconazole, along with the xe2x80x9ctriazolexe2x80x9d class including, but not limited to such derivatives as fluconazole, terconazole, and itraconazole ect.
It appears that the high nutrient concentration found in pepper including vitamins, minerals, carotenoids, lipids, and others assist the above therapeutic effects in addition to the pungent compounds. Pepper compounds are safe, and have been in widespread use as food for thousands of years and do not induce illness, or injury as do some prior art treatments.
As a generally recognized as safe (GRAS) listed nutrient food compound, pepper medications are ideal for livestock, pet, and companion animal use in addition to human. Sytemic, as well as topical medications to control a variety of other viral disorders can be developed including feed additives to prevent disease.
The veterinary market for treatment of warts can be greatly broadened given the high effectiveness, low toxicity, and very low cost of my medication. Wart infections need no longer afflict livestock, pets, companion or other animals as before.
Prior art topical wart treatments have prevented the formation of a market for the treatment of livestock such as cattle. The cost of medicine, its very slow action, coupled with the very considerable amount of labor required to repeatedly administer the medicine, can not be justified economically. For this reason, no significant market exists within the industry for such products.
The current invention, however, enlarges the scope of product possibilities by making treatment of these disorders economically feasible.
The many therapeutic properties, and beneficial components found in pepper provide ideal prospects for treatment of other related disorders including tumors, cancers, neoplasms, and other papillomas such as polyps, and villous papillomas. These agents also provide application toward treatment of herpes simplex disorders including genital herpes, and cold sores. A systemic treatment for the more serious, and often life threatening viral disorders combining high effectiveness with a reduction in toxic side effects that too often further endanger the health of the patient is also feasible with these agents. With the steadily rising number of cancer, AIDS, and immunosuppressant drug treatment cases reported now, and anticipated for the future, pepper compounds provide an important research tool in treatments directed toward these more serious, life threatening conditions. Speedy resolution of warts with cancer causing potential is itself an important cancer preventative through elimination of the precancerous stage, and spread of the wart causing virus to other parts of the body, and to other individuals.
Commercial implementation of this topical wart treatment alone can have major impact by making affordable a certain cure to even the poorest people of both industrialized, and developing countries now excluded from care because of the high cost, and low effectiveness of prior art treatments. A complete cure that does not require an attending physician, and for less than one penny on the dollar for what is required of prior art treatments will bring relief to many millions of sufferers, rich and poor alike while expanding the consumer demand base for the product accordingly.
Full-scale implementation of these medications will save billions of dollars in Gross National Product in the treatment of wart disorders in the U.S. alone, not to mention the world.
This enhanced level of safety, effectiveness, and dramatic cost savings of this medication should serve as a model to both private managed care programs including government healthcare programs such as Medicaid, and Medicare wherein billions of dollars in medical expenditures are saved while providing the best care for recipients.
In conclusion, this novel wart treatment can save our nation and many nations of the world millions of dollars each day in medical costs, and lost productivity. It provides highly lucrative new products for commercial exploitation in the areas of human and animal health. It provides an important research tool in the prevention, and treatment of cancers, and other viral disorders including life-threatening varieties that could perhaps even save lives of man and animal alike. It makes now available speedy relief to hundreds of millions of suffers.